Cilta-cel or Standard Care in Lenalidomide-Refractory Multiple Myeloma
Authors: Jesús San-Miguel, Binod Dhakal, Kwee Yong, Andrew Spencer, Sébastien Anguille, María-Victoria Mateos, Carlos Fernández de Larrea, Joaquín Martínez-López, Philippe Moreau, Cyrille Touzeau, Xavier Leleu, Irit Avivi, Michele Cavo, Tadao Ishida, Seok Jin Kim, Wilfried Roeloffzen, Niels W.C.J. van de Donk, Dominik Dytfeld, Surbhi Sidana, Luciano J. Costa, Albert Oriol, Rakesh Popat, Abdullah M. Khan, Yaël C. Cohen, P. Joy Ho, James Griffin, Nikoletta Lendvai, Carolina Lonardi, Ana Slaughter, Jordan M. Schecter, Carolyn C. Jackson, Kaitlyn Connors, Katherine Li, Enrique Zudaire, Diana Chen, Jane Gilbert, Tzu-min Yeh, Sarah Nagle, Erika Florendo, Lida Pacaud, Nitin Patel, Simon J. Harrison, Hermann Einsele
Journal: New England Journal of Medicine (2023)

Ciltacabtagene autoleucel (cilta-cel), a B-cell maturation antigen (BCMA)–directed CAR T-cell therapy, is effective in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed or refractory multiple myeloma. We investigated cilta-cel in earlier treatment lines in patients with lenalidomide-refractory disease. Download a PDF of the Research Summary. In this phase 3, randomized, open-label trial, we assigned patients with lenalidomide-refractory multiple myeloma to receive cilta-cel or the physician's choice of effective standard care. All the patients had received one to three previous lines of treatment. The primary outcome was progression-free survival. A total of 419 patients underwent randomization (208 to receive cilta-cel and 211 to receive standard care). At a median follow-up of 15.9 months (range, 0.1 to 27.3), the median progression-free survival was not reached in the cilta-cel group and was 11.8 months in the standard-care group (hazard ratio, 0.26; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.18 to 0.38; P<0.001). Progression-free survival at 12 months was 75.9% (95% CI, 69.4 to 81.1) in the cilta-cel group and 48.6% (95% CI, 41.5 to 55.3) in the standard-care group. More patients in the cilta-cel group than in the standard-care group had an overall response (84.6% vs. 67.3%), a complete response or better (73.1% vs. 21.8%), and an absence of minimal residual disease (60.6% vs. 15.6%). Death from any cause was reported in 39 patients and 46 patients, respectively (hazard ratio, 0.78; 95% CI, 0.5 to 1.2). Most patients reported grade 3 or 4 adverse events during treatment. Among the 176 patients who received cilta-cel in the as-treated population, 134 (76.1%) had cytokine release syndrome (grade 3 or 4, 1.1%; no grade 5), 8 (4.5%) had immune effector cell–associated neurotoxicity syndrome (all grade 1 or 2), 1 had movement and neurocognitive symptoms (grade 1), 16 (9.1%) had cranial nerve palsy (grade 2, 8.0%; grade 3, 1.1%), and 5 (2.8%) had CAR-T–related peripheral neuropathy (grade 1 or 2, 2.3%; grade 3, 0.6%). A single cilta-cel infusion resulted in a lower risk of disease progression or death than standard care in lenalidomide-refractory patients with multiple myeloma who had received one to three previous therapies. (Funded by Janssen and Legend Biotech; CARTITUDE-4 ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT04181827.) QUICK TAKE VIDEO SUMMARYCilta-cel in Lenalidomide-Refractory Multiple Myeloma 02:05